Tony Abbott has described Jacqui Lambie’s remarks about men and penis size as “colourful” and “quirky” but refused to be drawn into a debate about the appropriateness of the Palmer United party senator’s comments.

The conservative radio host Ray Hadley suggested to the prime minister that feminists were muted in their reaction to Lambie’s comments in an example of double standards, but Abbott did not want to buy into this line of questioning.

Lambie was asked last week by a Tasmanian FM radio station what she was looking for in a partner and replied they “must have heaps of cash and they've got to have a package between their legs”. She later asked a 22-year-old caller to the station and potential suitor whether he was “well hung”.

The new Tasmanian senator issued an apology, saying that while the context was a light-hearted interview with Heart FM she had tried to cover up her embarrassment at being asked about her love life by making a joke.

In an interview on 2GB with the prime minister on Tuesday, Hadley pursued an argument about hypocrisy by feminists.

“It just appears me that those women very critical of men because they happen to do or perhaps wink at someone – she describes as wanting a partner who’s well hung – and no one seemed to go into a state of apoplexia over that statement; it just smacks of double standards,” Hadley said.

Abbott said it “was certainly a very colourful interview”.

“I guess I’ve always taken the view that we say our piece – those of us in public life, we say our piece – and sometimes it’s well received, sometimes it’s badly received, and I guess the challenge always is to say the right thing, in the right circumstances and sometimes we get closer to the mark than others,” the prime minister said.

Asked again to venture an opinion on the appropriateness of Lambie’s comments, Abbott said: “That’s for the listeners to judge. As I said, I thought it was colourful, maybe even quirky.”

The feminist Clementine Ford described the Lambie conversation as “crass and inappropriate” but hit out at “the new bleating of the faux-concerned right” about the suggestion feminists were silent on the matter and hypocritical.

“Making a crass joke about dick size is hardly a 'double standard' when you consider the thousands of years women have had to contend with having their bodies commodified and subject to ownership while their minds and influence have been studiously kept out of the upper echelons of power,” Ford wrote in a column for Fairfax Media.